


Desert Rain

by Margo_Kim



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Nightmares, Sleeping Together, Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margo_Kim/pseuds/Margo_Kim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jane wakes unexpectedly, the sky’s still dark outside and for the briefest moment, she wonders which planet’s sky she sees. The moment passes—she is on Earth, Midgard, home—but the split second of terror sends a jolt of adrenaline through her that keeps her heart racing and her hands trembling. Sleep’s not going to happen now. Instead, she lies in the dark for a while, grips her own hands, and endures until she can pretend that she feels the surety of Earth speeding through the universe underneath her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desert Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [my tumblr.](http://margotkim.tumblr.com/post/68813386205/desert-rain-a-thor-x-jane-fic)

When Jane wakes unexpectedly, the sky’s still dark outside and for the briefest moment, she wonders which planet’s sky she sees. The moment passes—she is on Earth, Midgard, home—but the split second of terror sends a jolt of adrenaline through her that keeps her heart racing and her hands trembling. Sleep’s not going to happen now. Instead, she lies in the dark for a while, grips her own hands, and endures until she can pretend that she feels the surety of Earth speeding through the universe underneath her.

She doesn’t know why she woke. Normally nothing short of Darcy bursting in and jumping on the bed brings Jane back to consciousness before noon, but then again these days she hasn’t been sleeping the way that she once did. When she had the aether burning through her veins, through her brain, she’d slept far more than she wanted to and now that it’s gone she can barely sleep at all. Two weeks since the latest strangest days of her life (and what a world they live in now that she has to so frequently update that list) and in those fourteen nights, she hasn’t spent a lot of her time in bed actually sleeping.

Of course, she thinks glancing sideways at the mountain of blankets that is Thor, it’s not just insomnia that’s been keeping her up.

But she had been sleeping tonight, sleeping quite soundly, and now she is not. She doesn’t know why, not in particular. Just a general sense. The air smells wrong. Keeping her eye on Thor to see that she doesn’t wake him up, Jane slides out of bed, her feet hitting the carpeted floor without a sound. She’s not the most graceful woman, but she knows the small bedroom by heart and she can find her way well enough in the dark. She only stumbles over a few pairs of tossed off pants and shoes before she reaches the window. Thor likes to sleep with it ajar, it turns out, and the night wind brings in the scent of the desert filtered through the screen. This far out in New Mexico, miles from a major population center, there wasn’t enough light pollution to block out the sky entirely, and there are stars and moon enough to light the sands silver on their own. It’s a clear, clear night, by her old standards. By her new—Jane has been to Asgard now. She has stood with Heimdall at the gate to all worlds and she has seen what the universe ought to look like. What a fraction of the sky they see. Just a sliver glimpse through gauze.

The wind blows again, and Jane sees them coming on the horizon as the stars begin to go out—the clouds, black and grey and rolling, coming from nowhere. They carry the smell of rain with them, the smell of mud and something sharper. When she breathes through her mouth, it feels like she’s been licking pennies.

"My apologies," Thor says quietly behind her from the bed. She turns around to look at him, sitting up in bed now, with the solemn look on her face that makes her want to tell him that everything is alright, even the things she knows nothing about, even the things that aren’t. "I was dreaming."

She looks back at the window, then back at him again. “This is you?” She shakes her head and laughs. “Wow. I guess the myths got something right.” The thunderclouds are rolling closer, and as she watches, an arc of light illuminates the sky. One, two, three, four, she counts before the boom comes. Jane rests her arms on the sill and leans her face against the screen. She always did love the rain. “What were you dreaming about?” she asks quietly. The tiny squares of wire dig into her cheek and rub against her lips as she speaks.

Lightning arcs again. In the gap between light and sound, Thor says nothing. After the boom, she hears the squeak of the bed as he stands. He doesn’t trip over anything as he walks until he stops right behind her. She straightens as he wraps both arms around her just below her breasts and rests his chin on the top of her head.

"I dreamed of the past," he says. His words rumble through both of their chests.

Jane crosses her arms over his. She doesn’t know what to say, but she knows who she is and what she does. She’s good at asking questions. “The good past? Or the bad?”

The clouds are close enough that she can hear the rain hitting the ground.

"The present has made it so I cannot tell the difference," Thor replies. "Some memories that made me happy once are poisonous now."

He’s so large, she thinks not for the first time as she leans further back against him. He’s larger than any life she’d known before him, but he doesn’t hold her like he thinks her tiny. He rests his head on her like he could not support it on his own. It’s a terrifying honor, but she’s nearly been squashed by a falling spaceship, and she was possessed by an ancient evil for a while there, and she’s on the shortlist for this year’s Nobel, so it’s terrifying, yes, and it’s an honor, yeah, but she’s getting better at handling both of those things. He rests his head on her like he could not support it on his own, and she braces them both upright.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks. The wind through the window smells wet. It would make her shiver if Thor had not so well wrapped her up in him. "But we don’t have to or anything. We can go back to bed or watch some TV or whatever. Or have some pretty serious conversations about bring you to some drought ridden areas, that’s definitely something we’re going to have to bookmark for the future. Whatever. We could just stay here and watch the rain."

They stay there. They watch the rain. They say some things too, the kinds of things you only say when it’s so late in the night that it’s the morning and the wind and rain beat out their rhythm and sing. The kind of things you don’t say under the garish clear blue sky. And when the storm passes, or more accurately when it dissolves like no weather pattern she’s ever seen, it’s five o’clock in the morning. In two hours Jane’s supposed to be on a conference call with a Stark think tank on the East Coast who’ll no doubt be too chipper and upbeat for her to handle. Thor will make coffee and eggs while Jane will chug coffee and try to communicate her research through something more advanced than grunts. She’s looking forward to it.

But ninety minutes of sleep is more painful than none at all, and the bed’s grown cold. Thor looks at her with a cocked eyebrow and that teasing grin as he offers her his arm. Jane tosses her head back and takes it. They leave their shoes on the floor. They walk by the dawn light through the damp air, sinking their toes into the thirsty sands before the Earth, making its lazy circles through the familiar sky, swallowed the last drops of rain. 


End file.
